Thursday, December 11, 2008

If I'm not doing it, then it can't be epic

Syncaine considers that today's raids aren't epic any more. Why would that be? Because he isn't raiding any more of course! With impecable logic he concludes that if he isn't doing it, then it can't be worth doing, and definitely can't be epic. I mentioned the Zen koan about the tree falling in the forest before, and here is a great example: The epicness of this or that activity isn't so much defined by how easy or accessible it is, but by whether you're doing it or not. Not raiding at the moment? Then raids must be worthless, of course!

So what was so epic about the raids that Syncaine did back then? Quote: "Officer chat was one long bitch list about how our members are a bunch of babies, and what we would do for just a few people who could focus for longer than 10 minutes. At the time, it was a lot of fun, in that odd “I hate you” kind of way." So doing things you hate is epic, as long as it gives you the opportunity to trash talk about the serfs behind their back. If the serfs start to raid on their own, it's time to leave and trash talk about them on your blog.

I agree with Syncaine that times have changed, but I'd say for the better. He is exactly demonstrating what I always hated about the old style of raiding: It wasn't so much the fact that it wasn't accessible to everyone, but more the incredibly annoying attitude of superiority of those who raided over those who didn't. I *did* get up to the last boss of BWL pre-TBC, but I never considered raiding to be any more than one alternative mode of gameplay among many other equal possibilities. So I'd answer Syncaine's question of "What is raiding in WoW today?" with: What it always was; a raid dungeon is an instance into which you can (and usually should) bring more than 5 people. If anyone thinks that he is superior to somebody else, just because he had more success in a game, should seriously reconsider his life priorities. Even considering that skill might have been involved, in the end your skill in playing a video game gets you exactly nowhere in life.